


Vain Songs, The

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon - Enhances original, Canon - Outstanding AU/reinterpretation, Characters - Family Dynamics, Characters - Good villain(s), Characters - New interpretation, Characters - Well-handled emotions, Characters - Well-handled romance/eroticism, First Age, Plot - Bittersweet, Plot - Can't stop reading, Plot - Dangerous topic w/satisfying end, Plot - Disturbing/frightening/unsettling, Plot - I reread often, Poetry, Subjects - Culture(s), Subjects - Legends/Myth/History, Writing - Engaging style, Writing - Every word counts, Writing - Evocative, Writing - Experimental, Writing - Good use of humor, Writing - Mythic/Poetic, Writing - Well-handled PoV(s), Writing - Well-handled introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2003-08-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 13:32:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 11,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3852656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.</p><p>Update: Maglor rests after telling of the Nirnaeth, and a new voice takes over to sing of Doriath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

The One looked upon a vale of the void,  
and struck as a harp of the possibilities  
therein, He hovered, and heard Himself  
draw forth strings from his long fingertips.  
Lo! at their ends became musicians.

The strings he stretched crisscrossing end to end  
of the silent valley, and sat back pleased,  
intent on the symphony that sounded, after  
just a little practice, upon his word.  
Sing.

They sang, and from the silver threads  
dripped Arda, wrung red, a matchstick flame,

Sticky, sloshing,  
an awesome baby.

God heard wailing and turned  
to where he had long had the corner of an  
all-seeing Eye; his star performer  
gone awry, his marching tune  
banging up. Right bopping anti-madrigal.

God smiled at the vain song. Upped the treble. Then,  
causing Time, checked it, and said,  
 _Ëa._

Let it be.  



	2. Love Scenes: I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

‘Well, really’, says Fingon  
indignant  
‘the beast.  
He might have used something softer.

Do you remember, I wonder,  
our cords of velvet…?’

‘Lover,’ he calls, dangerously.

'Lover, lover,  
lover  
brother  
friend

I am attempting a death here. Will you  
be so kind as to help me achieve it,  
or leave me alone to it?’

Fingon, hovering anxious overhead,  
looks at the eagle confusedly.

‘A prayer is a prayer’, Thorondor shakes his feathery head.  
‘You get what you ask for.

Fine print: Use what you get  
or bust.  
What do you think Manwë runs  
aside of Arda, a carrier service?’

‘Well, I asked to die!’ bellows he  
(or tries; his voice  
that smooth dark winesip  
is now cracked and dry –  
a certain kind of elf princess  
would definitely be attracted. Definitely.)  
‘Conflict of interest’, says the big officious bird.

‘Personally, I’d leave you hanging, no hard feelings  
but boy Findekáno here has other plans, it seems.’

‘Wouldn’t he just?’ groans he.  
‘Findekáno, beloved, you bloody fool,  
curse your heroic heart.

Now go, please go.  
Make your father King.  
Tell the other nutters I said so.

And _ai,_ when you have a  
son, bring him here when he is old enough

Past the rocks and the orcs and the breathing dust,  
to tell him of my strength, my valour, my will.  
And above all things, remember  
to tell him of my beauty.’

‘Quite,’ snaps Fingon briskly  
tears clogging his sinuses, ‘Since we’re  
in a melting mood and all now. Let’s have me a son. Oh, why not?

Bloody yourself.

Tell me, coppertop,  
does it look like I developed  
elf-eggs  
along the Ice?  
No! So shut up for a bit while  
I cut you down -  
look; with my silver knife,  
genuine Telerin work,  
double-edged.’

‘Very nice,’ says he calmly.  
‘But fuck you if you think I’m going  
to let you touch me with that.’

The rock face is sheer,  
silent and ominous. They are two  
tired white dots on it,  
not noticeable, but memory gleams,  
even from afar,  
a pinprick in Fingon’s eyes, pointed as knives.  
Sweetly and sharply and petulantly he speaks.

‘All this way, Maitimo, all this way.  
I could have lost a hundred limbs.  
I could have died.  
I could have forgotten.  
But still my thighs are raw from slapping  
And I live.  
And I remember.  
Filthy, disgusting proto-hippy you look now,  
Your mouth foul too, so foul

But I  
love you.  
I love  
you.  
Therefore, choose: your hand, or me.’

He weeps. Throws his head back. Nods.  
Fingon begins.

By way of conversation, he says  
‘You have a new name. Maedhros.  
So no more Well-formed One. Of course’ - meditatively -  
‘it would be ironic  
given the circumstances. Do you like it, Maedhros?’

‘Eru Eru Eru Eru Eru’ calls Maedhros,  
more fervent than any eagle-wish,  
but Thangorodrim, alas, is a deaf land.

Later, it will prove to be not quite Valar-proof.  
(things were never the same there after Lúthien.)  
Today it is safe from God.

‘Poor redhead’, sighs He,  
drawing a line through ‘Maitimo’.  
‘such a talented cellist, too.’


	3. Love Scenes: II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

He wakes and is shocked.

For just a moment  
he sees  
two hands resting  
on his pitifully concave stomach  
interlocked.

Not one. Two. All ten nails bitten  
To the quick.

His eye then catches on  
to his right, where  
Fingon has finally laid down his vigil,  
lightly asleep on the dresser

pillowed on one left arm.


	4. Love Scenes: III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

Elves are adored for their beauty.

What beauty?  
You mean like Lúthien’s,  
made from part  
mother’s illusion, part fortunate love story  
and pale flowers that bloomed, happily, at just the right time -

that beauty?

Consider Maedhros.  
For one timeless moment, imagine him in an apt locale.  
A scarlet forge, a grassy vale,  
Or at the tiller of a thousand ships, and  
young  
with Youth, that weeps with joy  
at her eternity with him,  
and flings her hair joyously across his form.

 

Oh, see him, lovers. See, see the  
pitiless planes and angles falling into his shape  
flowing now slow, now fast.  
Mark well how  
earth and sky beg him to stand motionless  
a while longer, as  
Maedhros transplants himself step by step.

He is tall, ivory,  
All straight but the curve of his lip, and that  
like a plum bow plucked back by Oromë –

Enough.  
Needless to say, he surpasses description.  
Needless to say, his eyes, his hair, his sloping shoulders,  
all perfect.  
Needless to say what Fëanor felt  
when he first gazed upon him.  
Handsome, mad Fëanor, who did not, strangely,  
recognise light when he saw it.

And now: Youth soaks her long black hair,  
once more.  
Lets it drip into Fingon’s eyes.

\--

He says:  
Go; do not consider me.  
You are older, and wiser, and sharper, and better.  
Go; do not allow me to disturb

your reflection.  
What else do you care about, anyway?  
Sitting all day by your pool, angered  
at every passing bird that dares to pass a shadow over your mirror -

those birds will never forgive me for shooting stones at them.

Stones for beauty.

Opal for your skin and  
flint for your brow,  
from where emerges fire.

Why is my hair not red?

Oh, cousin. Oh, cousin.  
I think I hate you  
Even more than I hate your pool.

I am being a mighty sulk, I know, but it  
hurts to think that you would prefer still water  
to my living eyes.  
I hope  
you

drown.  



	5. Love Scenes: IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

 

Honey.  
Wet earth.  
Ringing metal.  
Maedhros.

He begins to whisper in his fevered dreams.  
‘Whole again, but for five fingers

and those well-spent,  
left in an iron band  
with the tallest pointing skyward.

Morgoth, beware. Maedhros lives.’

Red anger.  
Red pain.  
Red sweetness.  
One whole again.

Breath fluttering, he sighs,  
‘Hair tangled with hair on white pillows.  
Such beauty.  
Like burning coal in sleep.’

He whispers, as a trembling hand  
shakes him awake.

‘You’re doing worse than I am, they tell me,’ he says gruffly,  
secretly pleased with the somniloquence.  
Eyes wreathed in shadow.  
‘I came to see.’

Fingon uncramps and smiles.  


 


	6. Glass, Cut: V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

_'God Appears & God is Light_  
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night,  
But does a Human Form Display  
To those who Dwell in Realms of Day.'  
\--William Blake.  
\--------

 

 

God came to Fingon in a white dream one night.  
’Eru,’ he said devoutly  
pleased and not a bit afraid.

He was blessed and gently promised joy.  
’Would such-and-such honour You?’ the elf asked Him.

The dream grew lofty.  
I am benevolent, and a just One,  
He replied,  
not the judgement of your kin  
that believes oneness to imply one law.  
The Flame is not in such ways banked.

Of course it pleases Me, loved child.  
Therefore bind yourself to him  
with this My gift to all who will receive it.

He so said and vanished…  
then reappeared briefly, brow clouded.

Fingon blinked.  
Look after him a bit, will you? He asked.  
You will prevail, son of mine, but the world will hurt him.  
No, Eru, please!  
Hurt me instead, he begged in earnest.  
God smiled indulgently.

It has not been sung, He said, and left again.

\--

Next day. Perfect weather.  
The most beautiful elf in Valinor holds court on the steps of Tirion’s council.

That is the right word. Beautiful, breathes Fingon the innocent,  
gazing out through the golden leaves of the tree.

He does not know why, but it is the sweet womanliness  
of his brother’s arrogance, and the curve of his long body  
lazily draped over the marble,  
at the feast of high ideas that the young and dazzled and over-serious like to raise  
when he is in their midst.  
Was there any ever like him?  
Clever and kind and bored as hell,

He is waiting for something to happen, that one

paying half-attention to the talk, as befits the worthy son of a brilliant father.  
A brilliant, narcissistic father, one might add  
who knows the value of time spent thinking about oneself instead of others -

his eye falls on Fingon through the leaves.

\--  
Why, Fin-de-KÁ-no.  
Little cousin, yes?

Why is he looking at me like that?  
Is something…Grandfather…?  
No. He looks – happy.  
Make that – expectant.  
He’d put his arms around himself in a minute.

Mm. It does feel nice,  
to be watched over so.

Did I just say that? ‘Watched over’?  
My, Maitimo, wits about!  
Oh, you there, young one,  
here.  
I command you.  
\--

Young Fingon walks out ahead  
under the beckoning glance, hot  
quivering with god-given courage

And arriving before him, stands  
wide-eyed, resolved,  
and swallows in silence. Drinks  
the fine scent in.  
The crowd frays and dissolves around the rim of his vision.

Maedhros arches a russet brow. ‘Why are you here?’

Shining, gasping, he  
is in that moment struck dumb.  
Eyes squeeze shut and open. The world threateningly  
edges back into view.

So he smiles, turns and flees, breath starry about him.

\--

Thus began the watch of Fingon  
Furtive and fearful, shy and grim

frustrating  
determined  
day after day.  
In a hall. Watch, smile, turn, flee.  
At the baths. Watch, smile, turn, flee.  
Gardens, watch, turn, flee.  
White street, watch, flee.  
He kept his secret and his promise.

And Maedhros, made swan to a sweet, moody rook,  
Watched the clouds passing over his pool  
and sighed.

 

\--  
There is here a doubt: How do two imperfect halves make a whole?

Foolish question. Your art  
monocles you into believing a circle perfect,  
yet a pair of twins in a womb  
asleep in upside-down whorls,

These too are perfect  
and not a circle.  
(Your round compass misses every point but one.)  
Your geometry has beguiled you  
into it’s curved eyepatch of reason.

 


	7. Glass, Cut: VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rmil was the elven scholar who first devised a writing system for the elves in Aman, letters called the _sarati_ (or Sarati Rmilo.) For a long time, these were the standard mode of Elvish writing. Later, Fanor became interested in scripts, and he modified the older work to produce the famous Fanorian _tengwar_ that was used by elves ever after. The greatest difference between the _tengwar_ and _sarati_ was that the script was written horizontally, from left to right, whereas Rmils letters were written from top to bottom . Fanor also reduced the number of variable elements, producing a simpler and more consistent set of characters. (from http://hem.passagen.se/mansb/at/tengwar.htm, _Amanye Tenceli_ )

Note: Rúmil was the elven scholar who first devised a writing system for the elves in Aman, letters called the _sarati_ (or Sarati Rúmilo.) For a long time, these were the standard mode of Elvish writing. Later, Fëanor became interested in scripts, and he modified the older work to produce the famous Fëanorian _tengwar_ that was used by elves ever after. The greatest difference between the _tengwar_ and _sarati_ was that the script was written horizontally, from left to right, whereas Rúmil’s letters were written from top to bottom . Fëanor also reduced the number of variable elements, producing a simpler and more consistent set of characters. (from http://hem.passagen.se/mansb/at/tengwar.htm, _Amanye Tenceli_ )

*******

VI

 

Rúmil knows about imperfection,  
having made it.

Sitting under the harsh false glare of the  
Tree-light strobes at the gaudy bustling Mulmin Caran  
With women singing songs, trailing skirts, passing around Yavanna’s wine,  
he broods into his glass (Fëanáro made it)  
stained with green.

_Ai_ , Mulmin Caran, Mulmin Caran  
hall of mead and raucuous academia  
where the ladies are red, the men are white  
and everyone is debauched, steeped in modern poetry,  
glugging jade cordial cheap at the price.

He broods into his glass. Fëanáro made it.  
Fëanáro made it.

Fëanáro - (made you know what, and everyone’s using it  
even the old fast set that raised one million free toasts  
\-- To wisdom! To learning! To the Beautiful Rune! --  
None of whom now care for the wisdom  
of letters  
plumbing  
the depths. Those damned handsome seven sons,  
Mafiosi,  
have inveigled the generations  
\-- amazed, bamboozled them! –  
into a left-right revolution, really, _how_ martial.)

\- blacksmith prince, smiling mysterious,  
With your _telco_ and your _lúva_ ,  
I hate you. I hate you.

A tinkle. Light against glass.  
Fëanáro made it. That thing, red and white and glazed flawless,  
In here with his friends,  
laughing, pouting harmlessly

gazing past people to his own likeness  
Why, stop his preening  
it’s disgusting  
Just like the rest of them, oh no, oh Valar, oh just like I used to be.

He laughs. Thank you, Curufinwë, for teaching me a valuable lesson.  
Gets up, lays a hand on Maitimo’s shoulder  
in the looking-glass.

\--

‘Improper deeds? Yes, once before,  
An experiment in puberty  
I’ve been lonely  
(with those scripts)  
Wanting to find my feet for a while, by mutual consent, naturally.

Laws are defunct anyhow really,  
So terribly gauche. Fëanáro agrees, I believe  
(although we don’t talk much,  
well, blue-collar types)  
These are heady days. Peace, love, music. Of course,  
intellect is declining – everyone wants consistency and form --  
Simplicity; and they call themselves the Noldor.  
 _Tengwar_ vacuous idiots.’  
Mutter, mutter.

\--

Mutter mutter  
His head stops buzzing as he smiles and whispers to Maitimo confused

picks him up  
leads him home  
commits the unspeakable  
on the dim white bed across the shuttered dark window  
right before the mirror  
young Maedhros sees himself with a white man at his neck (for now)  
reflected, and thinks, idly,  
my father made it.

He commits the unspeakable unchanging day after day (Fëanáro made it)  
but calls no names. Maedhros imperious, does him favours  
learns quickly  
shows himself out  
comes back  
not knowing why  
(my father made it)  
keeps coming back  
captivated by his reflection  
until he does not know one from the other, is utterly lost,  
unfocused,  
diffused  
at least in the eyes of the one who best knows him

So Fëanáro finds Rúmil; trembling, ablaze,  
scorches him with his words, breaking storms upon the deserted mountaintop  
of shame and anger

and he turns away when Fëanor halts him,  
voice choked, congestive sad desperation,  
‘Rúmil, not with my child!’

 

 

 

****

 

_mulmin caran_ : Quenya for ‘Red Mill’. Interesting coincidence: the French translation of ‘Red Mill’ is “Moulin Rouge”, which was the name of the infamous 19th century Bohemian club in Montmartre, Paris.

Curufinwë, Fëanáro: both Quenya given names of Fëanor. We have also here assumed that he was the first to make glass and implements from it.

_‘telco’_ , stem; _‘lúva’_ , bow : Both components of the Fëanorian tengwar.

 


	8. Glass, Cut: VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

And now, back to luminance:

In the realm of eternal sight, there is always song.  
Singing by the silver light, singing by the gold,  
One soaring note by one, seven notes all told.  
One for each son, laughs an irresponsible father,  
But they know it is a joke, and grin.

 

A choir exults unto Ilúvatar (and itself) upon the green mound,  
It’s voices fair as other worlds, matching swell  
and dip. Tinkling voices, magic voices,  
certain, positive, exactly voices.

Fingon listens, and his tears dry.  
Which elf would not feel an epiphany  
at this?  
And Fingon is tired. His burden began  
as a humming ‘please, Maitimo, please’ that transmuted  
into ‘Eru told me’,  
‘Eru asked me’.  
Gospel sung as blind love.  
Perhaps this is your song, Fingon.

Fingon is growing up,too, his valiance coming afore,  
Seeking out his missing everywhere that he may go,  
which is upto the borders of dusk  
though not beyond,  
not yet.

Somehow, he is to be a saviour.

\---

Then  
Through the magic drying tears,  
there sounds a voice above voices.  
A slow soft voice,  
an unlikely voice,  
a bloodful, smoking,  
jazz voice,  
making blind love into gospel, the voice of,  
the voice of  
Is it  
The voice of another saviour  
With dark hair and dark eyes  
Who sings to save Fingon’s falling world  
\-- not falling per se, it’s still paradise – but praying a prayer  
that will live when all else dies

A prayer for amazing grace  
sweet sound,  
that finds what is lost  
and shows what is blind  
(Melkor fears that song and voice, although he laughs yet at it, wondering  
what little Makalaurë would know of blindness  
and lost-ness?  
It’s true; he doesn’t, it’s the herb talking.  
But the song will live as long as he, Darkness,  
who dimly knows this.)

\---

So sing, Maglor, mighty bard,  
of what happened next.

He laughs throatily out of the haze.  
‘Well,  
he came to me  
rosy stone-faced,  
and I knew what was and what wasn’t.

Bloody difficult to remember clearly, though.  
Haven’t I said? Those were heady days,  
The Leaflight made you real – warm. Slow.

Maitimo was ill like an echo then,  
weak and worried,  
and nervy when he wasn’t staring the ceiling into spots.  
(Nervy! he snorted, years later. Nervy!  
Whoever heard of a stunning bundle of nerves?)  
When you first love, you realise, don’t you, every part of your body anew  
And it is not your neck or your leg, but simply what the other touched.

It must have seemed like such a curse to him,  
like some disease laid spawn in his flesh. Young lust is quite destroying.  
The only thing worse must be old lust, though We, of course --  
Mother was just tired, Father was wild,

And along comes this child.  
Good family, moral background, Vanya Pride, we used to call them  
in private political incorrectness,  
My cousin Finny – chuckle – knight-errant.  
Knight-erring.

Varda, but he was serious. He never did laugh too much.  
I used to think he didn’t get our jokes.

I used to think a lot of things.

I used to be amused at those two,  
but it’s really only God who can afford to laugh at things like that.  
We’re all Fingon and we’re all Maedhros, in a way.’

 

Maglor gets ahead of himself  
wanders into the nearest cloud,  
singing scat, then soaring,  
seeming to think everything futile, which it is

But Maglor, Maglor,  
perhaps you don’t belong in your brothers’ songs,  
because forget your madness and junkenness  
and blindness and lost-ness, Maglor

golden minstrel, lasting lament  
and eternal aria  
crier for the Great Impresario In The Sky --  
you lived.

\--

About what happened:

Fingon walked to Maglor in a daze,  
(they were both in a daze)  
knowing his mangled purity, and told him simply, ‘I must see Maitimo’.

Maglor of his mother’s spirit, smiled,  
Wordless, led him home like a brother,  
by the hand, and left him at the door.  
Fingon turned the knob,  
the smell changed

from vegetable dye and rolled leaf to  
sheer, fastidious cleanliness  
smelt utter white, too incomplete for joy.

 

 

He was sitting on his bed, looking out of the empty window.  
He did not raise his brow this time,  
he did not say I saw you come, nor  
I was waiting for you  
Instead again, out of the now-troubled depths, almost in sorrow  
asked, ‘Why are you here?’

And Fingon did not run away.  
His head did not spin,  
his heart did not beat  
when with the calm of a messiah he said,  
‘To save you.’  
On high, Himself squeezed His eyes shut  
and made a mental note about the Literal Interpretation Of Prophecy;  
but Maedhros believed it,  
and fell to doom in his clear grey eyes.

\--

‘God’, Maglor rasps suddenly,  
too loudly,  
‘has as many ways as He does children.  
All mysterious.  
A Rúmil way, a Fingon way,  
a Maglor way,  
and the way of Fëanáro. Strangest, yet strongest. He,’  
in danger of incoherence, but only just faint,  
‘hated Fingon. But he had sharp eyes.  
Never said a word.’  



	9. Glass, Cut: VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

The door is shut, the window un-sees,  
The utter white falls into place  
as they begin reaching out to each other

 

in the mingled light  
of questions and answers  
left to be settled  
by a hand on a hand, that says

 

yes

 

and Maedhros learns anew the meaning of glass  
as it was meant  
Wrapped in long hair, he knows  
that he is a flame,  
and this is a storm  
and Fingon –  
transparent, cloudless Fingon will  
surround him, and protect him, and hallow him.  



	10. Glass, Cut: IX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

It is no secret that ---

\-- We have found ourselves –

\-- We would like you to know ---

\-- We love each other, and that is all that matters --

They lean out of their huddle, furrowed,  
Wondering quite seriously what to say.

Maedhros, is this not amusing, you world-weary ever-young pretender?

Apparently not.  
He unrolls parchment, getting out his feather and inkstone,  
Unroll, whip, whip. With straggling tongue on lower lip,  
And quill in wet black ink, dip, dip,  
begin

“RECONCILING RELATIVES TO AFFAIR”

Nerdanel:  
Ammë, we’re happy.

Indis:  
(They smile passing darkly. Oh, how we love irony.)

Indis:  
Think, one less heir from THAT House born.

Finwë: (Maedhros’ secret scribble in Sarati)  
Yes, ‘Ta, F-I-N-D-E-K-A-N-O. The brave one, Right.

‘Maitimo, why must we do this?’

‘Well,  
because, of course, it is the right thing.  
We do everything right.  
And the laws, the customs,  
The Eldar who wrote them – we must fight for our place!  
Bring it out into the golden, establish  
ourselves and others like us -  
We’ll call it…we’ll call it…  
Maedhros, sparkling with joy at his mammoth task,  
call it – upon our royal expression  
\-- the Purple Revolution!’

‘Maitimo,’  
Fingon’s voice grown very small, asks  
‘Why do we need laws in our world?’

He grows thoughtful,  
flustered,  
roused halfway by the thought of such an intelligent question,  
dampened by the impossiblity of a simple solution.

He rises to the occasion.

‘We need,  
we need  
We need them for ourselves, dearest.  
For how would we live, how would we function,  
Without these great levelling injunctions?

Else we would have  
Anarchy!  
Sweeping on hurriedly:  
And everyone would do just  
what they like – ’

Abrupt pindrop silence. The mind is in session.  
Oh yes, he is mired himself. What now, Maitimo,

how to explain to oneself a law contradictory to the very land?  
His mind prickles and burns.  
This  
is the country of everlasting good,  
This is earth where all is as it should  
be; we are the masters of our hearts  
and they declare, they do declare  
what parchment and feather and inkstone can NOT.  
Cannot.  
No, no; our hearts know best.

Have they – can we suppose – they could not have gone –

wrong?

Maitimo, pacing, is now struck dumb.  
Wrong, he realises. Wrong. Oh, the horror – wrong, wrong, wrong.  
It beats upon his chest,  
I am marred! He is marred!  
Our bodies sweat to devil’s music!  
We are not harps and viols and ‘cellos, oh no  
we are  
we are  
we are screeching metal kitchen implements.

Wait. It cannot be. He is on our side.  
Yes! How could I forget?  
His dream, my lover’s dream,  
That mighty, pure…

…illusion.

His fingers are stained. Black ink, have us sink.

‘Maitimo, Maitimo!’ Fingon is alarmed.  
‘I did not mean to offend, or unhand you.  
Is your fever uncoiled again?  
Maitimo!’

\---

 

Dusk lengthens once again.  
They sit, watching their shadows  
hold hands, growing taller.  
Fingon holds unthinking calm,  
Maedhros wonders, the first in Aman to think  
Eru,  
have You  
forsaken me?


	11. Glass, Cut: X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

_Eru,_  
have you,  
forsaken me? 

 

\----  
An Age later:

‘Yes, You have. Yes, You have,’  
the baffled king whispers, hands warm in his father's blood.  
I have not, I have not, He cries, _mourns_  
I was only not a jealous God.

The younger sons look from death to heaven  
and say sadly, He was our Father too.

The candles are snuffed.  
Dark squeezes forth its line of white pilgrims.

\----

 

‘Severed from our bower, we march upon this hour  
We march! We march! We are strong, and do not cower!

We seek him in his den, we boys now grown to men,  
We go! We go, e'en our one against his ten!

Lead us to your prows, that we may keep our vows  
Lead us, for our fate is writ upon our brows!’

_(Confusion. Chaos ensues.)_

‘Let us set sail, for we do not quail  
Do not! Do not! And we will not fail!

Where all is night, and robbed of light  
We go in might! We go to fight!’

_(Faster and faster. Madness descends.)_

‘We go to war, 'gainst one we abhor,  
For greater glory of Vali – ’

_(Abrupt end to downward-spiralling rhyme. The marching tune_  
gives way  
to an unchoreographed horror of blind frustration  
of  
weapons slicing through flesh  
rrrrrrip, squirt, gush, aaaa, aaaa, aaaee,  
sordid sounds of elven dying,  
like Ungoliant sucking lifeblood from a simple tear  
of her claw.  
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrip.)

Findekano!

‘Findekano Prince, none braver ‘fore or since – ’  
the singer stops as he beholds a Teler princess running, running,  
and takes a shaft to her and she bleeds to death

Fingon unhearing, tearful  
panting,  
gold-braided head awhirl, stops his graceful  
gleam-bladed swirl  
for a moment, calls

‘Maitimo!’

On the other side, he is sweeping, tackling,  
killing none, enjoying  
the breath of speed, feeling unbound and safe  
in the circle of his sword, unwary  
of committing a crime  
for Maedhros sees Maedhros and no other.

Third Finwë, mighty son, thy day of glory hath begun -

a bard begins when the prince unknowing cuts  
the soft belly of a fishwife;  
bewildered, bloodlust does not take him,  
but the wonder of such a thing, that he could swing and cut a swathe  
and mistake a life for rushing wind

‘Damn your oath!’ screams someone - Maglor, quite out  
of the slow warmth of leaf or light this once,  
Maedhros grows fearful and rebels  
takes a rage upon himself  
‘I will not damn my oath!’  
More die beneath his blade.

\--

No dawn lags behind this night,  
no sky turns red at the sight.  
It is a various black and blacker. Ulmo shudders.

The sea turns sicksweet after the departing ships.

 

 

 

 


	12. Lords: XI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

‘Dear Maitimo,’ begins Morgoth  
in a so-familiar voice.  
‘Come off it,’ Maedhros says,  
‘I know you’re not Findekáno  
and I could say much for that state of affairs, but!

the issue at hand:  
Give them back, won’t you,  
before we’re forced to kill you.’  
And oh, he calmly slaps him.

A little elf-man jags  
The cheek of a Vala. What a world this Middle Earth is.

‘Nice hand thou’st got there, Maitimo,’  
says Morgoth, spitting out a tooth  
looking more than a little yellow.  
‘Pity, of course, given the circum— ’  
‘What circumstances?’ asks Maedhros.

‘Oh-oh.  
Oh-oh. I think  
Thou hast better sit down.

Thou knowest not,’  
he begins in a galaxy-far-far-away way,  
‘The late glorious Curufinwë – that less-said-the-better-one – ’  
‘That’s my father we’re talking about!’  
‘Yes, yes, about whom not enough can ever be said  
Really, thou Eldar, anyway, when thou wast born,  
He saw

The worlds in thee, and marvelled,  
and thought to cast thee in armour divine.  
Oh, crafty smith! He concocted with  
A double bubble toil and trouble  
A magick fire, verily

And we saw it – we that see everything –  
Glowing limpid in its cauldron,  
A boiling red-gold potion he wrought  
First in secret, in the deeps of his forge.

‘Twas flaming crystal strange,  
liquid and fell, with  
strain of metal unknown, and gold,  
How perilous power he devised it to contain  
None knew then, or shall know again.

And by it’s side made he a fragrant balm  
Of healing herb and cooling charm.

This he laid close by the cauldron; then lifted thee,  
a squalling babe  
With tender might, lo! e’en by thy right wrist  
And in a breath, lowered thee  
Into the scorching brew.

There came thy lady mother, who  
took sight and screamed in agony  
And hasting forth, drew thee from  
the strange pot, and healed you quick  
with the ready salve.

Yet deed was done, and so ever  
fated art thou to last  
Unmarked by spear, shaft or sword,  
Or by any way consuméd, but for  
the force of thine own will,

and then only in like fire,  
fell and blazing, from full founts three;  
Thy god, thy father, and/or – me.’

 

‘Sue me,’ says Maedhros sulkily  
‘Your crude Valarin vocabulary, ohhh  
But it is a terrible headache, Foultongue.  
To put it plainly, before my wrath is sprung -

I didn’t come here for your fairy stories, Foe.  
Give me my Silmarils, and I shall forth go!’

‘Oh, no,’ grins Morgoth.  
Ropes glide forth from his dark walls, to bind  
the fairest of limbs  
‘Hello, what’s this  
You don’t mean –’

‘Do too.  
I’d like  
To throw thee in my Balrog pit,  
and I bet they’d love it too,  
but did I forget to mention?

There is one other way, Maitimo.  
One  
other  
way –’  
His voice lowered in a sinister, grinning whisper,  
he reveals  
‘- that thou shalt bring me joy and not grief  
For all the years of thy life  
If I, like thy father, hold thee  
by that o’er which no elixir washed,  
And so stays unwarmed, unarmed –  
Unarmed.  
Oh, Maitimo.  
Thy right wrist, thy right wrist.

It is mine.’

 

 

 

 

 

\--------  
Any and every resemblance to the well-known myth of Achilles is brazenly intentional. This one is for Acacea and her gentle amusement, with my thanks.


	13. Lords: XII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

Imagine a continent crossing  
a galaxy belt of ice.  
Imagine pale stars fallen in a frosty river,  
like flashing sequins clustered on a mean,  
vicious lady’s white gown.  
Scrunch. Scrunch. Scrunch. Imagine their cold.

And a continent is not sea-lapping land  
floating along on tendrils. It is  
seven armies of supple marching bodies,  
men and women strung like words on a page.  
Commas, children, hefted in arms.

‘Now!’ says Fingolfin, and the cry is taken up,  
‘Now! Now! Now!’

Seven hours it takes for the echo to die down.

In the silence they look at each other, wondering what next.  
Proud Turgon and Finrod fair, Orodreth the wise,  
Angrod, Aegnor, Argon, commanders all,  
and as candle to fireflies, so Fingon stands,  
time frozen in the tears on his cheeks.

‘Now,’ Fingolfin says in a voice more prudent,  
‘I see the cursed land of Morgoth, sown first by my brother’s sweat.’  
(‘Blood,’ mutters Finrod, he of foresight)  
‘I behold  
it’s green woods, and grey lakes.  
It is time for victory, more victory  
in an age than found in all eternity.

Let us go forth. Go now.  
Leave our graves behind.  
My banner, stewards.’

Heralds hoist his flag, blue and silver,  
Grieving, Turgon sounds a bleary horn.  
It is music, music, the song of war glorious. Tremble,  
black man. For what know you  
of valour, that lives and dies and lives again  
in sinew, in heart, flowing like rivers of light  
through the veins of the ages?  
Undying Morgoth, valour is not your vandalism, smearing  
empty vaults with fresh blood and running,  
would you know?

Valour, Morgoth.  
Fingon will show you.


	14. Lords: XIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

So Morgoth has known, at the loss of his plaything,  
of gutless love-courage.  
As has been seen.

Whirr past days of of flowing blood,  
Sopping bandages, fearful dreams,  
Ominous, flickering silence for the boy king,  
tonguesweet faith for the boy prince.

Clinging by warm shoulders, burying faces in undone braids  
breathing deeply, matching each unsteady heartbeat  
for each, until

Fingon leaves. He must.

\--

Cut to sombre Maedhros entering a dusk-filled tent  
(tawny warm colours, low hissing brazier)  
after six others, stalking past their semi-circle to a pole.  
This he grasps, inclines his head to the fraternity. They sit.  
He is risen  
in their eyes, a pillar of  
fire. strength. salt.

He speaks.

‘Sons of my father.  
You have new and musicless names.  
You have slender lisping concubines. You have  
been bereft of a king too long.

I assume this is why I see no ardour here.  
Only North camps and South camps, and shifty eyes, and curled lips.  
This is your idea, perhaps,  
of upholding distinction or dignity, whatever you think that is.  
But it is not the way to win a war.

The Enemy is big, my brothers. Very big. Wider  
than the sky, and as unbroachable.  
It is the truth. Do not slaver your hosts  
into believing they will be heroes. They will not be.  
Many might die. You might die.  
Yet you will fight, more and much more.

Yes, you have fought hard these years,  
And never was I more proud of you, Makalaurë,  
Tyelkormo, Atarinkë, Carnistir,  
my beloved Ambarussa, than when you refused to come and save me.  
Your wisdom held in his treacherous face. It gave me hope.

That is another thing. Expect to be addressed in  
nothing but your mother tongue when I speak. I have not been around to forget.  
Humour me.’

The firelight shifts, falls uneasy on their faces.  
The ones called - kindly Maglor, blond Celegorm,  
Curufin, Caranthir, dark and magnificent - silent.  
Little Amrod and Amras look up earnestly,  
wondering how they lived without him.

Firelight over his stooping frame.

‘Today I look North and see  
requiring.  
They are lost in mists and smoke.  
They walk long ways, slowly.  
I see Turukáno has lost his wife.  
Words cannot express how I feel for him.  
For all of them.

We have suffered too. For good reason,  
it is our battle.  
Why should Father's brother or our prince-cousins be here?  
They are not their jewels. It is not their oath.  
They could hardly care less. They are here out  
of loyalty. Our grandfather taught us all well,  
and they remembered him. We did not.  
We burned our ships.

Something may be saved yet, though,  
and so it shall be saved.  
This crown has passed to me  
to do, in all conscience, as I please with it.  
I choose not to keep it.  
I walk tomorrow with every royal trapping I own –  
Horses, food, weapons, wrapping,  
Kingship.  
All to lay at our uncle’s feet, who is eldest,  
and not the least wise of the house of Finwë.

No.  
Not as a debt of gratitude to Nolofinwë's son.  
There are no debts between lovers.  
That is what I said. Lovers. I will say it louder, should you  
be hard of hearing presently. It is not our greatest issue,  
and not our utmost guilt.

Tomorrow we begin  
to redeem our vows and our worth.  
Our honour, as I see it.  
We will take to the rockiest hills.

Breathe the coldest air, sleep the shortest nights.  
Eat the least food.

Ours must be the hardest fight, not because we are lesser.  
Ours must be the hardest fight because in us is set  
such grace of spirit and strength  
that we could fill vacant vessels of the Sun and Moon,  
and not diminish their light.  
From tomorrow we will lead, then, but with bare heads.’

His beauty has deepened like a rain-filled lake.

‘You will stand by me, smiling and soft-voiced.  
Bow before you are bowed to. Give what is due.  
Take aught, speak aught of taking,  
And I snap your knuckles between my fingers.  
Be still.  
Do not tell me that I lack a hand.  
I know that I lack a hand. I can afford to lack a hand.  
Because that is how I am.

Ambidextrous.

Twice-balanced.’

 

 

 

 

\----

Turukáno : Quenya for Turgon.

Nolofinwë : ditto for Fingolfin.


	15. Lords: XIV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

Daybreak.  
The north shore rises with the sun. Washes its face,  
looks at its plate,  
and turns to the wind.  
  
The wind bears someone.

Eyes widen.  
Peer for a minute, then whip,  
thump! down against the wall,  
panting to keep pace with frantic blood.

Eyes glimmer and narrow.

A lone child skulks by the paling.  
  
Now 'Scoot for my uncle, will you?'  
asks a light voice behind him.  
  
The boy beams, scrambles off. He wants to sing as he runs.  
  
So frank, so witty, so winsome, so wise.  
In all the houses of the Noldor, there is  
none loved - not even Fingon,  
or worshipped, - not even Maedhros,  
so much as Finrod Finarfin's son.  
  
Now he stands tall and golden, alone at the head  
of the dry grass courtyard.  
  
Finrod would be a prince even if he were  
dragged out into black muck  
and made to chew his own big toe.  
  
Calm sunshine.  
Maedhros approaches. He does not care anymore  
for anyone. He will not smile. He will not blink.  
He does not know what to say.  
  
The morning waits to split its silence.  
Finrod does not know what to say.  
  
'Coppertop.'  
'Strawhead.'  
  
Smile. Smile.  
  
The leaves go whew.  
  
Now Finrod wants to sing. He steps up, laying fingers  
at the unharmed elbow,  
too discreet to say what they mean, (Here, brother,  
let me steady you.)  
  
This is why distant Amarië loves him.  
  
Now greater love approaches on wings. 'Maitimo!'  
'Findekáno.'  
  
Soft, shining.  
Fingon falls to his right, charmed vambrace.  
Finrod smiles. He has always known.  
  
Now watch the eldest sons of Finwë's sons  
break into their stride. Even knowing  
what will happen to all three some  
six, seven centuries from now, and so achieving nothing, really,  
drink in the sight.  
Who knows what will be again?  
Hush. See them as they move  
further and further away. Their backs.  
  
That shimmering arc of God's forehead.  
Look from your left to your right.  
First Finrod, dawn. Then Maedhros, dusk.  
And Fingon, raven night.  
  
\---  
  
'Boy,' breathes Fingolfin to his nephew,  
shocked, shocked, unreasonably hurt,  
'you make me feel so very old.  
Your eyes, child - what words from me?'  
  
'None. Please,  
kind, noble father-brother. The very first  
day I came to your house, you got up from your seat,  
I remember. It was the mid-gold meal. You took my hands,  
called me in,  
bade me eat with your sons and you. So would you do today, I know.  
You have  
twice my age, and more wisdom than  
I would earn in a Vala's reckoning of years.  
  
Me, apologise? It is beneath you to accept it.  
Only I can offer what strength I have, what strength  
your soul, your son,  
has saved for me. Take, and command it.'  
  
'What?'  
  
'Tell me what to do.'  
  
'Stay with me.'  
  
'Except that.'  


  
Mid-day.  
The sun shoots up, all white out blazing.  
Maedhros, jewel-headed, looks to the unseen stars.  
'Lord of Eagles. Lady of Light…'  
  
Down to the silent dust.  
'…lords of Water, Earth. Queen of the Trees…'  
  
Quiet. A light is struck.  
Celegorm rolls his eyes.  
  
'…by Eru Ilúvatar, who was before we were,  
and will be when Arda is no longer…'  
  
Quiet. He shrugs off the crown.  
Then - his braid brushes Fingolfin's bare white foot.

Dull metal thunk.  
  
'…you, Fingolfin, are my King.'  
  
'King!'  
'King!'  
'HIGH King!'  
  
\---

Day done.  
More quiet.

Moonshine through bleached cotton.  
Lift curtain.  
All moonshine.  
  
Curtain fall. 'Oh love.'  
'Love.'

  
Are the whispers of people in close embraces  
like the sighing of a breeze through roses?  
  
From a great distance, it is all the shadows will give up.  
  
'...to Himring?'  
  
'Himring.'  
  
A blink. 'Well.  
That is not so far.'  
  
'Not near enough.'  
  
'Then don't go.'  
  
Clattering stones. Night birds set off a squawking.  
The morning's boy runs away from his mother.  
Shh-shh.

'Sometimes I feel,' his red hair unwinding,  
wine snakes out of wine snakes, 'frozen in cold,  
upto and beyond my eyes.'  
  
Long, pale fingers. 'Strange it should be so.  
Was it not your name I spoke to the ice winds,  
that drove their chill from my heart?'  
  
Now the black plaits. 'I will go, Findekáno.'  
  
'Yes.'  
  
'For twenty years, perhaps,  
and each day of each year  
twenty years in itself.'  
  
A last jet loop. The boy is caught.  
  
'Yes.'  
  
Now night falls on honeyed evening and stays fallen,  
Until the curtain crimsons,

and dawn rises from a beloved dream  
to sound a gentle warning at the door.  
  
Then time begins again.

 

 

 

 


	16. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

This interlude owes very much to many people. To thank them would be to demean them, but I believe that Homer, Achilles (again), Helen of Troy and the goddess Aphrodite must know that their Hellenic flame has outlasted and outshone the downfall of two civilisations and the steady crumbling of a third to stay magnificently alive – somewhere, somehow. I owe much to Christopher Logue’s brilliant translation of the Iliad, literally and figuratively, for this one.

Beauty is cruel, but just sometimes, it is enough.

On a less random note, thank you to Lipstick and the brief glimpse into her fur-wearing flatmate, that finally sent this written.

*******

Arms out, Maedhros. Slow, now. Full  
White albatross span, long (still long)  
Enough to tickle one end of the  
sky -  
Mother-of-pearl.  
Cotton.  
Rat fur –  
and punch the rising sun at the other.

 

Light flutter, dark velvet sleeves.

 

Ill-mannered spirit children seep through  
the aether to tap accusingly  
on your shoulder with mist-fingers  
and run away.

 

This is Himring.

 

This is where elves know neither morning nor night;  
it is all day work, to build,  
to spar, to hide, to seek  
and know freedom.

 

This is where you rise  
from the dust lake bowel plain  
from your knees  
raise your voice  
raise the cry  
 ** _God is so unfair!_**

 

Because he made the world with one  
Twirling baton, tumti-tum,  
and you – Maedhros –  
also fan  
five fingers out across  
these hills and crack a fortress  
from their icy rims.

 

Because others die –  
Huddling, whispering shadow elves  
wondering, who is he?  
and orcs, and other  
beings less beautiful, but you do not.

 

Why?  
What happened to pain  
and unimaginable torture and  
darkness

 

And the push-push-push things that peeled  
your whiteness off in waves like rancid cream,  
like Fingon used to do  
with your robes, with two light cool fingers?

 

And the laws that state clearly, DIE  
when you cannot take it. Go when the white  
and the red become like salt and blood, like  
running deep cuts along your arms and  
diving into the sea,  
let  
it  
HIT  
YOU!!!!!

 

But if you  
think five fingers  
are really enough  
to pluck the strings  
for your theme, _Creation, Fortification, Destruction._  
New Age, Maedhros and the Sestet  
w/Royal Noldor Military Orchestra (accompanists),  
maybe they are.

 

Maybe they are.

 

Beauty is so free, so removed from fear, so strong,  
so intact, somehow.  
So  
un  
fair.  



	17. Lords: XV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

So come one, come all!  
Hold hands in joyful reunion! Eat! Drink!

Be merry.

And converge, Elves, around fell Fire,  
just as you do in a harvest dance.  
Close in! close in! Set your siege, and shout  
 **How glorious the Noldor are!**

to redraw Beleriand with Finwë's bloodlines.

The evil one is cowered, and Day  
is come! Ah, princes. Ah, Fingolfin.  
The war trump is glorious indeed.

Shall we name you, then,  
just to drive home the point  
of how many lords  
a single family can produce  
(and how many times over Morgoth will laugh  
at future meetings,  
their poison-kissed soirées  
of bloodlust and pride)?

Turgon of Nevrast, sea-lover, from whom  
shall spring forth the star of the world,  
and people like that. Turgon, who can  
bear to be alone. You of the intense eyes,  
and immense cleverness.  
Your sister Aredhel goes where you go.

Eventually, her ladyship will rule  
one square patch of dark garden and a  
shadowed child's mind.  
Lovely, mannish Aredhel.

Our youngest great lord, you, sun-like Finrod,  
who brook the enmity of not one sapient creature  
in the world, take light into the mines.  
You find a jewel for a city.

Now you are Felagund,  
Lord of Caves. (A pleasant irrelevance, of course.  
Finrod could be Lord of anything he liked.)

Your sister, lithe, golden,  
with thoughts like knives, goes visiting, discovering  
the family proclivity for kissing cousins  
within herself. For Galadriel loves  
distant Celeborn, he who learns her speech, and mayhap  
her mind. Both, for the most, in secret.

There were once two trees like them.

From the northern slopes of Dorthonion, Angrod and Aegnor  
pass the time by looking to the plains  
of Ard-Galen, counting heads in their fiefdom,  
and falling in love with utterly unsuitable,  
argumentative mortal maidens.

One of their sons holds Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard.  
His name is Orodreth,  
and he is weak.

Eldest great lord, High King Fingolfin, holds Hithlum  
of the hardy, Hithlum-hated-of-orcs, fair land of  
silence and snow, gem of white brows,  
quiet, gleaming Hisilómë.

Now, East Beleriand. That  
is hunted upon  
by five magnificent young warriors,  
Amrod, Amras, alike in mood and face,  
Celegorm the Hasty in Himlad, aided  
all in all by Curufin called Crafty, though  
'tis another brother's cleverness that brings in the gold  
from Thargelion, hold of Caranthir, the dark-tempered.

The bard Maglor, golden of voice,  
sounds the hills alive  
from a gap in Gelion's arms,  
Maglor, gentlest spirit ever to dwell in the body  
of a kinslayer.

Eight princes, two ladies, two great overlords,  
yet two remain untold, commanders and princes -  
why so?

Simple. For as we speak, Lord Fingon  
of Dor-lómin, and Lord Maedhros of mighty Himring,  
in a rare moment of irresponsibility,  
have forgotten the council, forgotten dinner, forgotten  
their very names,

as each reads his fate all over again,  
shining in the other's eyes.

 

 

 

 

\-----------To Mouse, with a free crate of Therb, because she grooves. ;)


	18. Kill: XVI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

_Things fall apart..._

 

 

But somewhere in the chambers of  
an impregnable white fortress that sweeps higher  
and plumbs lower than anyone but the maker knows,

light is - folding into itself.

 

Question: How do we know light?  
Because darkness indicates it.

And vice-versa?  
Same thing.

Mingling, mingling. Still;

the centre holds. Still

there is a centre. But see the shadow  
slide in smoothly, a heaven-ramp, flinging light  
into sloping yellow lathes that shine  
dust into the room - shut the windows.  
It is dark.

 

Maedhros,  
in the dark, with a glint of steel  
to match the glint  
of steel in his eye,  
in his hand. Left hand.

What do you think, lord of Himring,  
what?  
He thinks,  
shall I kill them with my  
bare hand (one), or shall I take  
this sword - you, my lovely  
father-wrought friend - and scratch  
them over,  
under,  
gouge, rip,  
be violent?

Violent. For he erred in trapping  
five fingers. He left five free. And no compassion  
to go with them.

Gleam. Now - cut the dark.  
He does.

Rip it to shreds.  
Like wind.

Thrust, parry. Endlessly.  
All alone, he fights the winds.  
Thank you, Manwë. Thank you, Manwë.  
Rip. Rip.

 

For Light escapes all lids clapped  
upon it's cauldron, soaring through the iron rims,  
bubbling over, over bright, over memories, over  
new and strange, unpleasant truths  
that are truths all the same  
because they catch like collars on the wrist in  
a tight iron band  
and swing one like  
a dainty rag.

Now there are truths.  
Now there are dreams, too.  
 _The shadow of pain -_  
Now, there are memories  
 _\- in his heart._  
  
Switch lights, spot on  
six others, so afraid.  
Light. Light. Light. Light.  
Light. Light.

Maedhros in the dark.

Maglor!  
Defeated.  
Celegorm!  
Escapes.  
Curufin!  
Humbled.  
Caranthir!  
Ha.  
Amrod!  
Amras!  
Taken together,

Down, down, he knocks them down,  
he flings them all to the ground,  
down, down.  
Down, down.

Go to the hundred orcs,  
a thousand, if there are such,  
and not be cut,  
not be scratched,  
and the blood tainting my shining armour,  
shall be none of mine

he thinks.

It isn't. Ever.  
Orcs die in mad numbers.  
Mad numbers of revenge.

He thinks,  
Where does love end and hate begin?  
In both we place our hearts,  
and in both we yearn to trust.

Perhaps there is no difference,  
and they are both forks in the same road.

 

See what you learn in hell?  
He thinks.

Drone: How do we know darkness?  
It is indicated by light.

Vice-versa too?  
Of course.  



	19. Kill: XVII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

Flashback. Rock face.

Wind, water, choking ash.

Cold whips.

"When the colourless One made the Eldar,"  
whispers Sauron into his red hair,  
Sauron, lash of leer and stench and  
smirking black spit,  
"He made you all without Death.

Then He loved you so much that  
He thought to make you taste of it, and said,  
Have it. And call it  
Sex.

Hands. Hips. Gentle bruises.

Take a little death, Maitimo.

Dream of what the real thing will be like."


	20. Kill: XVIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

And Fingon is being  
a good prince in Hithlum,

holding the centre, centre being.

He is truth. He is a dream.  
Sadly also a memory, thanks to  
rolling black leagues between his desert and  
Maedhros' desert, and twenty years apart.  
Desert, desert, all desert, lover.

 

God came to Fingon in a dream one night,  
long ago, in Valinor. Now Fëanor appears.  
"Uncle," says Fingon, not devout,  
not afraid,  
and not overly pleased.

He looks nothing like Maedhros. His hair is dark.  
His frame is skeletal. His eyes  
flicker.

Maedhros looked like that on Thangorodrim.

Shake. Fingon tries to concentrate.  
Stare. Fëanor fixes his gaze on Fingon.

"I did nothing," Fingon tells him.  
"Nothing your son would not do  
for one he loves. I, at least

am called Valiant. My father never taught me fear.  
But your son has known it, and grown strong.  
And he, too, would walk  
into hell alone. Never falter, not give up,  
and come out of it alive.

I love him for it. Yes, I do.  
I love him, because he lives, and when  
he walks into a room, he fills it with a wanting  
to live. A hunger, as it were,  
to know what it means to survive.

Not merely in his brothers or me. In everyone. Almost a whole  
civilisation. This is - " voice faltering,

"this is about him, of course? For ask not,  
Fëanor uncle mine, of your jewels and  
when they will be taken back.  
I do not know. I am sorry I do not.

And  
why should I, when sometimes,  
in the dark, I can see by Maedhros' light alone?"

A wind faery puckers it's cold mouth and blows,  
woo hoo.

Breeze. Breeze.

"He _is_ beautiful," murmurs the ghost,  
absently.

"Almost too beautiful to look at," agrees Fingon.

Silence. It shivers through the spectre,  
billowing it.

Blue dark night.

"How do we know of day?"

Fingon frowns. "You tell me."

"Night," Fëanor says, "tells  
us where it is."

"What nonsense, sir, you tease me. For then  
you would say, we know of life  
only when death descends."

The thin ghost smiles  
a thin smile. He  
lays his fingers' bones on the starless river,  
Fingon's head.

Winds tear his body of air severally. Seven thin clouds.

White muslin curtains, flapping.

Gales.

Gales.

"I am sorry I had to cut his hand,"  
offers Fingon. Eyes scorched. "I had to save him."

"Save him."  
In a windy voice. Saaaaaave hiiiimmm.

Nod. His head shifts. "Yes, that is what I said."

He is alone.

 

_Things fall apart..._   



	21. Kill: XIX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

Flashback. Grassy slope.

"Do you think of me  
in my absence?"

Dancing breezes.

"No, Maitimo."

"No?"

"That is to say, not much.  
Only each time I draw breath,  
and then again,  
when breath leaves me."


	22. Kill: XX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

_Things fall apart..._

 

Children, children.  
When did Morgoth begin to panic so  
to send out child worms to spew his filth?

Combat.

A baby Glaurung, fell dragon, burbles at Fingon  
and holds up two green-gold claws.  
The prince shakes his great braids  
and holds up his crackling blue sword.

Glaurung invokes Morgoth.

Fingon cries violence,

and aims, as ever, for the  
enemy's right wrist.

He saws off a paw. Poison hisses  
to the earth.

 

He wounds, wounds, wounds,  
and his world, defiled by blood  
is also washed clean with it.

His eyes glint terribly. He sees  
Quendi, so many,  
frozen to no more speech.

Day gives way to night.

Glaurung spews a sobbing breath of fire.  
Fingon laughs, and the final shard of ice  
in his being melts.

The centre holds.

 


	23. Kill: XXI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

I have heard the sounds of murder ringing  
over and over, in my ears like sirens, for  
the age my feet have warmed  
this dust. I have seen  
my youngest son's namesakes spring up  
over the land,  
like flowers to perfume his memory,  
to bury my heart  
in the earth's corner that is him.

They call these creatures, these _yrch,_ your children.

What did you feel when the first one died,  
killed blind by a shaft of righteous anger?

Morgoth, I will fight you.  
( _I_ will fight you.  
I _will_ fight you.  
I will _fight_ you.  
I will fight _you._ )

I will fight you and die,  
because I do not want to live.

It is a strange feeling for one whose  
only gift from God was life. But I say to you now,  
this immortal does not want eternity.

Catch. Here goes. All yours.

I have more than I ever thought to ask for, lord Black.  
I am King. King! High King!  
I have a son and daughter who love me  
dearly, despite the uncounted distance  
between them and me,  
that prevents them from dropping by  
to chat, _what cheer, dad,_ even once  
in thirty, thirty-five years. I have a wife who, thanks be,

is safe from violence and my embrace  
in a land that used to shine.

Anairë, Anairë, I love you, my heart.  
Watch over me.  
I wish you were here now, only so  
that I could place my head between your legs  
and force myself back, back into a womb. Any womb.

I do not want to be cold.

Mother. I'm sorry.  
I will strike this god at least once  
for my father, your husband, who came to you  
from the depths of despair.

Ah, Finwë. Indis.  
I can see it so clearly.  
The kiss, the explanations, I've always loved,  
and what of Mír - oh. Oh, my lord, we must remember  
her always. And the little darling, he will  
smile again, perhaps? With brothers, sisters, mother again,  
though not in that order, no, not necessarily. Laugh.

Mother, we are such imperfection.

I want not imperfection, sir. Strike two.  
Are you counting? I have  
my nephew's eyes. A pair.  
Two blows for that, just two, for I  
am too tired to separate the hurts that reel from them,  
like needle-rain on the sea under a thunderstorm.  
Grey seas. I wanted, yes.  
But nothing from those eyes.

 

It will pay for my march too, in all fairness, you villain.  
Marring, pain, exhaustion, cold,  
death, life, death, life, life.

Maiming. Or no, technically,  
that was my son's doing.

One more for my Fingon.

Because he is too good to deserve  
what is coming to him.  
Because I once showed him a vision,  
of his own smile beside another's, a stunning  
Sinda songstress, raven-haired  
like him,

A child with dimpled knees who sped into his arms,  
as children are wont to do with Fingon,  
calling him Father, _atarinya!_

and his uncles coming to visit, the little lad laughing  
at Finrod's games, Maglor's songs,  
curling copper hair around his chubby fingers -  
And my eldest boy laughed, and cried, and shook his head.

One strike for Ereinion,  
may Angrod and Orodreth do well by him.

And before I go,  
to sleep or retribution,  
one more blow I will allow myself,  
for I believe in numbers,

and seven always intrigued me.  
My brother had seven sons.

My brother.

Ah, Morgoth, you, too, fight  
Curufinwë's war. That is not to say  
I do, (certainly not!) but he was my brother,  
and I did love him, in a way.

It was very painful.

_I have seen the best elves of my generation destroyed by madness..._

One last strike, on the tender sole of your foot, mayhap.  
No, not for my brother, for madness' sake merely,  
for the fey laugh, and the far-seeing eyes,  
and the terrible beauty of his cries,  
as he came forth seeking, and died,  
as I came forth seeking, and to die.


	24. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

You don’t expect to see him for another twenty years. But he never does inform you, so you are warned only when he appears over the hills in the distance, a speck of white and dull copper until he is close enough to become Maedhros. And you know that there are people who won’t believe whatever you say about a hunt, so you forget to take anything but a change of clothes and the weapons that never come off your person anyway. You go because a day is a lifetime in this new land, and there are people more literate than you are to answer letters for you. You go because he asks you to.

There, in the forest, you spend the first night in an exhausted, restless sleep, probably dreaming, until you feel a sharp crack on your shin. He is watching you with quiet, wakeful eyes, waiting for you to recognise the pain. And your laugh rings in the blue air because you are young again, sleeping in a woodshed with straw scratching your skin, wanting to bury yourself further in the mahogany-red hair that fell past his hips when you unbound them, but he is kicking you, half-amused, to stop you from lashing at him in your sleep. You’ve always slept alone before. You cannot help but stay awake now, because time is running out for you both.

He is silent in the mornings, which you spend listening to the insects and the water from under the pines, lying on your back, trying to forget everything but what matters, like how there are perfect round droplets of silver that cling to his body each time after his swim. He soaks his hair in the stream and comes back to kneel at your side. Slowly, he lets his water-dark hair slide over your body, over your face, dripping onto your closed eyes, draining the ache and heat from them. Lying with Maedhros is like that now. You survive on berries and water because hunger is far from your thoughts.

He drapes himself over you then, his right arm pinned by his left hand behind his back, claiming your lips with little hurry. No force. Your own arms lie motionless at your sides, not daring to touch him. Afternoons spin out forever, the insects growing louder and louder, until you finish making love, and realise that it is evening.

There are no walks under the stars, no fond conversations about past lives. There is no fire because there is no flint. There is no cold, because there is no thinking about cold. The nights are filled with Maedhros, and he is all there is. He talks in the dark. He tries to tell you that he loves you, even though the the words are impossible. But he tells you other things, what he thinks and feels. He talks to you.

As dawn approaches, he talks of war. The sun rises, and he is silent once more. War – war sticks in your mind. You are riding home, thinking about it, when you come to a parting of ways. A look, a touch, a half-hopeful sort of promise. He turns and rides fast, leaving you a dry throat, and a fading bruise above your left ankle.

He has forgotten his clothes stowed in your pack, and as you lift them out to breathe him in one last time, you find the flint in his pocket.

 

 


	25. Fire Music: Prelude to the Nirnaeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

The brass winds up the old tune again, a  
pleasant bluesy brewing. It could be  
a shaded New Orleans café where  
One enjoys coffee and odes to rejection,  
dejection,  
denial,  
recreation, You name it.

 

The breezes wail piteously – and die out.

 

Neo-jazz? The Eyes undroop lazily.  
What a nice change.  
Fuzz away, boys.  
But the winds died out, my Lord.

Why, so they did, He smiles kindly.

(He was awake all the time, really.)

 

Infinity is the moment just after the applause,  
just before the unveiling.  
All eyes on stage. Blackness.  
And then, one mellow, sad flute.

Of course, no One is fooled.

And those who see, see him turn  
To the East, expectant as –  
Flute fades.

And THEN

a blinding flash of fire in the oval  
rips through the shadow swathes of God-only-knows-what  
Where the uncovered orchestra (right there all along)  
Unleashes itself in a tempest,  
Charging the stairway to heaven  
along quivering staves, pounding them down,  
Flinging itself along like a snake of flame,  
As part upon part -  
Piano is really a high form of percussion,  
the violins could stop traffic, presto, presto,  
pipe up, everyone  
\- that lay ages half-finished  
in its tissue, flies toward the others  
and fits. Crash. Boom.  
Sawdust everywhere.  
Animato.  
Crescendo.

A melodic rush, and then the inevitable.  
Perfection, perfection, the Good ones harped,  
Yes, the orchestra plays back, perfection,  
Perfection,  
louder - PERFECTION!!! -  
utter  
and complete  
annihilation.

Crescendo.  
Crescendo.  
Crescendo.


	26. Nirnaeth Arnoediad: XXII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

**I**

This now, the tale of that.

I was there, I suffered. I was an elf.

First was the long dark; cold, whispering, grim.  
The voices of leaders spoke like it. They were  
excellent killers, heroes all. And  
I killed orcs, a hero among many.

I began to take a secret pride in that chill, because  
we did not feel it. Noldor, now we were  
ice beneath our milky skin. Ice, and cold, cold courage.  
We waited.

We waited and then, the King whispered  
an echo in the hills, giving up night to the dawn, to beauty.  
Sun, shine, heat.

It was a sunny day when he knew he was to die.

His dreams were haunted by the dead,  
so they said. We knew  
that if there was a war,  
he would, in valour, take and  
ride the weapon of death,

come victory,

or come ruin.  
It was ruin.

He knew he would die, and in  
the end, that  
we would not win.  
He was stripped.

_Writhing, fire whipped_  
into his veins, his hair, a  
dark, cool river parched, bleached  
in horror, armour jagged, twisted back  
back back  
into his own charred flesh.  
Balrog work.

It was a bad way to go, even said that  
Death the stranger  
never comes in dignity.

They say his eyes were open.

It was the fairest day on which we heard  
the last breath in those hills,

of Fingon crying  
hope,  
hope, day is come.  
The hillside looked like diamonds  
fallen ten thousands, that day. They were  
proud like us, brothers, kin, slayers of orcs.

I was there when Turgon came to war and brought  
the last dawn with him.

 

**II**

There was ash  
where once was bone and flesh,  
and milky poison - the last of his gasps.  
There his body crackled and dissolved,  
like the old, old, parchment  
of a vain song.

I swung my body in pain, singing  
songs of wrath, wringing blood  
into the naked earth as it spat and hissed. I sang  
until I shuddered and fell.

Maedhros rose, and he sang not.  
He was silent, but his hand held death,  
greedy, gasping for things  
no heart out of darkness could fathom yet.  
I was there when he, betrayed and blind,  
calm and white-lipped in his fury,  
wrenched the day into his grasp, even as death  
grew mountains around him  
and filled the low grounds of the world.

There was fury, but not simply fury. No,  
there had been quiet yearning in that dawn,  
And something else, a kind of love  
for the ones who stood facing North, with each other, a love  
for all who looked like us, smelled like us,  
and talked in our tongues, and lived in our world.

Some held hands and smiled for courage. Two men behind me,  
Armour-loud, turned into the other each,  
and kissed, lingering sweetly. One was very young.  
We tried not to listen by winding our fingers  
tighter. They were in love. I like to think

their bodies did not wrench apart  
in the wave that took us, over and over, until  
we sank, and all that floated was a drunken hill  
of our limbs.

They even took our hair; silver, golden, mostly black.  
They made them whips and trinkets.

I was there, three days later, when we  
began to need the smell of blood.

We had a daze, no food, no sleep, no breeze,

the musk of war ran down the rotten streams,  
rolling with dust blacking, wetting, slicking.  
And elves forgot what elves once were, now killing  
to breathe the scent of blood, like starving children.

I was there when rumour circled the air like buzzards,  
settling finally on our heads.  
I saw him, wounded, bent at last,  
his ear deep to the ruddy soil, to catch a heartbeat  
as it ebbed into the earth, a  
heart  
beat  
or a name in the wind, a last smell in the  
field, of cinnamon and sunsoaked cotton, wisping away  
from that hideous pyre, a sight before the lines  
of this world blurred into the next, perhaps only  
to see  
him walking, only passing by,  
even not looking at him, just walking,  
onwards,  
one last  
one last time.

I was there when Maedhros lowered  
his face into the pulpy ground,  
to see, to smell, to hear  
in vain. I heard his last prayer,  
and heard the name he called,  
but I heard none call him back.

I was there when the High Kings died and went  
to hell.

I was there. I was an elf.


	27. The Vain Singers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

Saying these things, Maglor fell silent.

For a while, we watch the smoke  
curl out of his voice, make dragon's shapes in the sharpness of air  
and demanifest.

The flames of his cigarette cast lengthening shadows on the walls  
of the trees. The foam rises, the sea crashes. We breath it in.

A voice is heard, muttering "Fëanorians."  
The shadow is long, very long.

"Good evening, Orpheus," Maglor says delightedly.  
"How charming to see you. How is Eurydice?"

"Do not mock me!" Daeron cries.

"But I must. For whoever loved  
that was not laughed at? You know, I used to laugh too.  
But as I was telling these, well, these people, we're - "

"All Fingon and all Maedhros, in a way. Yes, I've heard that before."

"From me?"

"I don't know. But I think it is pitiful."

What the pity is, Daeron does not clarify,  
whether it is that Maglor is a fool, or  
whether it is that he tells the truth. Sometimes,  
as people have said, the two are not  
mutually exclusive.

"I was coming to Doriath," Maglor says. "I just had to stop  
and take a breath."

"Why must you continue? Your hero is dead."

" _One_ of them," Maglor says sharply. "Besides, this is a tragedy.

And a good tragedy ends not with death. You know this.  
The tragedy is knowledge. Ask Eve. Ask Oedipus. Ask  
my father,  
for examples."

"Perhaps," Daeron says. "But your brother died an ignorant kinslayer,  
all the same."

Maglor puts fingers in his ears and waggles them.

"Stark raving mad."

"I am, I am."

"And your brother died ignorant."

The minstrel's words speed through the air  
like a spear. Maglor lowers his hands and says,  
"Perhaps."

 

Night wakes. "It was my land he destroyed."

"I heard you left it long before we came."

"Shadows and countries  
never let go. Let me tell the story."

"Great you are, but you are not kind."

"I will try to be truthful. And I will try  
to be musical." A sigh. "It has been very long  
since I made any song."

"Try," says Maglor. "And remember this-  
he mourned those children."

"Did he? Did he know who whe mourned? Or as a shorn tree  
holds out lightning-struck arms to catch leaves of other trees  
to cover its own nakedness, a grasping autumn -  
was he like that?"

"He was not like that," says Maglor with dignity.

"But then, you lack objectivity.

Let me tell the story. I promise if I  
discover aught of his goodness, his justice,  
his nobility in the telling, I will not keep it to myself."

"You must tell of his love."

Daeron kneels at Maglor's feet,  
sifting ash from sand. "Enemy, I will."

 

\-----

As night falls, starlight hemming out fading gold,  
Daeron claears his throat, hums, and states, hesitantly:

_Maglor asks me_  
what he can do  
but he cannot touch the choked  
sea-floor of my 

_despair_

_without drowning._

__

 

_Now I will have to walk_  
the dripping forest  
in my dreams, alone  
with the little grey-elf boys  
who left their shoes behind. 

_I am not coming back.  
_

 

Pause. The palms bow,  
and candles sniff.

"Proto-Imagism," says Maglor, and laughs  
his ruined, roaring sea-laugh.  
"Daeron, Daeron,  
 _il miglior fabbro,  
miglior fabbro mio!_*

Daeron bows stiffly and says, "I try."

"You don't. An artist should not try,  
but be."

Pause for effect. "Did your father teach you that?"

"Yes," comes the answer. The candles melt into fire.  
"My father taught me many things.

But how we engage in trivialities by the pound!

Come Daeron, if it please you,  
and the ghosts of wood and murder comply,  
we will hear you. Begin at the beginning -  
not a device I am fond of, but begin -  
let us hear of Doriath."

 

 

\---

*the better craftsman, my better craftsman. T S Eliot dedicated The Wasteland to Ezra Pound as _il miglior fabbro_ , a direct quote from Dante. The Pound-Eliot/Daeron-Maglor parallel pleases me greatly. :)


	28. Doriath: XXIV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Fingon and Maedhros in love, beauty, madness, and above all things, vanity.

Think of a country  
as a woman.

When it casts a grey cloak about you to hold and hum into,  
When its air holds the sparkle of a cleansing breath,  
When its land cradles you, its heartbeat thrumming up into your heels,  
When its colours are pleasing and no voice calls men to war  
\- that country could not be a man.

 

Doriath was Yavanna herself.  
Elu and Melian saw to that.  
Not even the coming of the Sun and Moon  
caused harshness to scratch a single skin.  
The trees sang and taught us gently.  
The Noldor and the orcs were mapping the land outside,  
and they mocked us, challenged us;  
But we had mapped the stars.

We sang before we wrote, wrote before we hated.  
Doriath was the soul of an emerald.

To swim in the deeps of Menegroth and know  
the earth's whims by Melian's pulse,

To be not Elu, but near him, as he pierced  
the frontiers of his skin with divinity,  
a living jewel, lover of the limitless,  
a law unto himself, sharp as a meteor shower,

To walk in Neldoreth, where magic wove  
and grew strong in dark, a self-guiding poem,

To be alive and see Luthien  
dance as God might sing -

Think of this as Doriath.

We were wild, unpredictable,  
a nation of gods and minstrels,  
We fought, drank, laughed, thrilled,  
we worshipped, we were volatile.  
We were innocent, for that age of amber.

We had the beauty of individual, separate notes of sound,  
long before the Noldor had a purpose  
and long after they nursed it into obsession.

To us, things were never one seamless whole.  
Inside our eggshell, we gleamed, each in our own right,  
loved the music,  
set the rest free.


End file.
